Projects
Occasionally, I collaborate with artists and experiment with slow audio to present new takes on the meditative experience, with the objective of changing ideas about how we practice and relate to the world.
Past London events have included an immersive exhibition of the images on this site - Stages (x Egle Pernare), a live performances of an original soundtrack for Stages (x Lou Vilstrup),an experimental supper club journey into ideas and tastes of the sublime (x Ines Dos Santos) and a sensory hack designed to ‘Augment Your Reality’ (x AAA Gallery).
Details of new Melbourne events will be posted here.
Stages
Stages is an exploration of what happens when we close our eyes and become still. It describes the series of gently unfolding transitions that occur in meditation, and encourages people to notice subtle changes in their experience, as well as gain insights from their practice.
This project was created to remind us that our lives, like our internal worlds, are in constant flux - and that the possibility for transformation is always there.
When we begin meditating our mind is full of impressions of the outside world. Our body is highly active. Becoming still seems a distant ideal. But slowly the act of doing nothing but being present to our experience washes over us and we start to settle…
As you continue meditating, your mind will set back in like fog, so anchor to something physical - your body. Diverting your attention away from sensory distraction to internal rhythms, like your heartbeat, breath and pulse, will loosen the mind’s grip, moving it into the background of your experience.
Your focus has been on your body, but eventually, your sense of it will fade away, and you will feel peaceful for a while… Until things get hazy again and you realise you are thinking (despite your efforts to tame the mind, it is used to dominating). Mental unrest caused by your thoughts may make you want to move or open your eyes. The challenge at this stage is to sit through the discomfort - can you do it?
Staying still, even if you’re restless at this stage, will evoke a sensation like light slicing through clouds. A luminous new state of mind is opening up… Your body settles, breath softens and the fast, wave-like activity in your brain becomes relaxed.
You are more aware now. It’s a shimmering, captivating kind of awareness. But still you hold back from being completely absorbed by your experience. Why? Your mind again… Thoughts rise like the peaks of waves and you grasp at them before they recede. So reconnect at this stage with your physical experience again: relax your eyes, lean back, feel your internal still point (solar plexus), and focus on your meditation technique to tire your mind from thinking.
Focusing on the meditation technique at this stage channels the mind’s energy to the centre of the eyebrows where your brain's pineal gland interprets any ongoing activity you are aware of. As this activity drops, there is less to interpret, and thoughts slow down or stop forming completely. Your experience becomes light and expansive.
As you pass over a threshold into expanding consciousness, paradoxically, you may become totally 'unaware' of your experience. This lasts for an unknown period of time. Trying to hold onto it is pointless - by the time you realise something has happened, the experience has already vanished.
Letting go of attachment to outcomes leads you further into a meditative state. Awareness of your body and breath is now minimal - like you are falling asleep... Observations of your inner experience may be more abstract. Mind an artwork painted in soft lines and subtle hues.
Arriving at this stage transcends your understanding of the world created by your mind. Everything merges and only the formless remains. There is such expansion in this last stage of focusing inwards that it changes your whole mind-body constellation.
Emerging now from your meditation, shifting your attention from in to out.... The world looks different - more open and interesting. When you meet the conditions that change within and around you with quiet curiosity, your conscious state will evolve.
Slow Audio
Slow Audio experiments with creating the conditions for making and listening to audio slowly. It focuses on capturing people and places in transition, moments of reflection, and the soundtrack to our contemplative experiences.
Notes
A series of audio reflections from people after a period of self-directed contemplative practice. The recordings reveal the insights that arise when we create the space to settle down and observe our inner experience.
Kat, Melbourne, 15 November 2021
“I was surprised how quickly I could switch off from my body. My mind was harder - but I guess that’s the point, you’re not meant to be controlling it all.”
Sian, Melbourne, 24 October 2021
“I had a conflict between letting it go and if it’s important it will come back and - no, come back, there’s a solution in that. It was interesting that conflict in myself between letting go…I don’t know if it’s control…and trying to retrieve what was there in order to find an answer.”
Caroline, Melbourne, 31 August 2021
“I was oscillating between making an active effort not to focus on the feeling of pain and leaning into the sensation. There’s fear, and I could feel those emotions lingering, but interestingly I didn’t attach to them.”